A New Fear Getting Conquered....cadaver lab!

I decided to pursue a career in occupational therapy rather than music, counseling, geology, human relations. That meant I had to go a different direction than I ever expected. I had totake Anatomy. It's something I never even thought I COULD do! 

We started with the skeletal system for the first week... Not too bad. Second week of class, we anxiously sat down, waiting for the big moment and wondering how we were going to react. I was not alone in my extreme apprehension. The TA's nonchalantly carried in three severed arms and placed them in a tray right in front of us!  The guy next to me said he heard that when you feel like you're going to pass out, tighten up the big muscles in your lower body, and it will push the blood back up to your brain. Trust me, I utilized that advice a lot! 

Lab is two hours long. The only thing I learned in those two hours was the trapezius....everything else is real hazy – I was just trying not to pass out and to process the fact that there was a severed arm and a dead body with its head cut in half. That's all I could do. 

Several days later, I went back.  It wasn't much better – I still needed to process what I was looking at and trying to concentrate on body parts and not think of it as a person. We were going through the muscles on the arm and the guy turned the arm over and the hand, with the skin still attached, looked like it was reaching out to grab me. I jumped away as if it was going to get me!  I'm telling you – I wasn't learning anything!  

So then there is today. We are only allowed to sign up for two open labs a week, other than that we have to be in the standby line and hope there is enough room to get in.  I had tried to other times but did not get in.There is ALWAYS a line in the standby line because we know it is the only way to learn and get it alldown for the weekly quizzes. I signed up for 8 PM so got in, and was lucky enough to study with some smart kids and a great TA.  After a while, I got brave and touched just a tendon.  Not like the other kids just grab a hold of the muscle and turn it over, I gingerly went toward a tendon – it took about three attempts – But then I did it! Later I graduated to touching a muscle and then to turning it over.

 I am amazing, in fact, everyone is amazing! The human body is so complex that it is mind-boggling and impossible and incomprehensible to imagine that it could come about in any other way besides divine origin.  We are absolutely incredible in every single way!